The German churches in London

For centuries, German residents have been noted for two characteristics: The skill and industry they showed in their trades, and the loyalty of their attachment to their religious communities which they established in London. The German Protestant and Catholic churches cultivated this sense of home and country in a special way. At the end of World War Two the rebuilding of bombed churches and scattered congregations was a major task with which the Embassy has remained linked, also through the annual memorial service for the dead of two World Wars, which the Ambassador attends at the German Soldiers Cemetery at Cannock Chase, Staffordshire, and at Brookwood near Camberley, Surrey.

The solemn re-opening of the German Evangelical Church at Sydenham, SE23, took place on 21st June 1959, of the new German Catholic church, St. Boniface, Adler Street, E1, on 14 November 1960. Both church buildings had been destroyed in air raids. That these German churches came to be in South London or "the darkest London" of the East End at all is explained by the growth of the city beyond its walls and by the fact that immigrants used to arrive by ship in the port of London and often settle in the neighbourhood of the docks. The descendants of the original congregations have long since moved to other parts of the capital, but many still attend their old churches loyally.

The Sydenham church is not the oldest German Evangelical church. This was the Hamburg Lutheran Church which received a Royal Charter in 1669 from Charles II, at a time when non-Anglican churches were banned in Britain. The last of this church's various sites -- in Dalston, near the former German Hospital -- no longer exists. In 1692 and 1694, William III granted another Lutheran congregation the use of the Chapel Royal in the Palace of the Savoy near Waterloo Bridge and the present Savoy Hotel. The church was known as the Marienkirche, the German Church of St. Mary-le-Savoy; it also had its own school. After World War Two it was rebuilt (in 1978) in the London University area as part of the Lutheran Student Centre in Sandwich Street, WC 1.

Directly linked with the House of Hanover was the fourth German church, the Lutheran Court Chapel, founded in St. James's Palace in 1700 by Prince George of Denmark, the husband of Princess Anne (who became Queen Anne). When King George I, who spoke little English, came over from Hanover in 1714, he installed his Court preacher as the incumbent. The German Lutheran tradition continued in the Royal Chapel until Queen Victoria's death in 1901. Its successor congregation is the small German Evangelical Christ Church (Christuskirche), Montpelier St, South Kensington (built in 1904 by the banker Baron von Schröder) which is a more convenient centre for the large number of Germans now living in the southwestern parts of the large capital.

The rejection of the German nationalist past, a search for a new church identity combining the German reformed tradition and the ecumenical spirit which had grown from the persecution of the churches by the Nazis, characterised the postwar Evangelical development in Britain. There were many different elements -- refugees from Nazism, converts from Judaism, German prisoners of war, the early influx of Germans seeking work in Britain after 1945, "war brides", au-pair girls. There was also the problem of the name. "Evangelical" and "Protestant" in Britain signified a particular Low Church tradition within the Church of England. Then there were various Lutheran communities from the Baltic states controlled by American churches. It was necessary to formulate clearly what German-speaking Christians meant or did not mean by "Evangelical", "Lutheran" and "Protestant".

So, in 1980, a "Council of German Church Work" was founded from which (in 1955) the "German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Synod in the United Kingdom" (now "in Great Britain") emerged. This was a wholly independent body though in partnership with the "EKD", the German Evangelical Church (which pays its present ten pastors, responsible for some thirty congregations all over the country) and also with the Lutheran Council (VELKD).

Specially remembered among generations of German pastors are D. J. Rieger who served St. George's congregation from 1930 to 1953 and founded Der Londoner Bote published by the church in Alie Street, E1, and Adolf Kurtz (1891-1975) who came to England in 1948. A close ally of pastor Martin Niemöller, he and his Jewish-born wife had played an important and courageous part in Berlin in the struggle of the Confessional Church against the Nazis. In Oxford he worked with another pioneer, pastor Dr. Hans Werner Kramm, who belonged to the Berlin Bonhoeffer Circle and had studied in Oxford. When Dr. Kramm died 1955, pastor Kurtz took over as founder and first Senior of the new Synod of German-speaking Lutherans, and he initiated the German Sozialausschuss which coordinated German social welfare work in Britain. Pastor Kurtz, responsible for the Midlands area, also led the church reconciliation work linked with the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral and was instrumental in the scheme for a memorial window sponsored by President Heuss for which a cheque for 5,000 Pound was donated. Another long-serving German pastor, just retired, is Eckard von Rabenau who looked after German-speaking Evangelical Christians in Cambridge and the North Eastern counties.
Well-known and popular in the Roman Catholic community was Father Felix Leushacke, now retired, of the Pallottine Fathers, whose London mission lasted from 1952 to 1986 and included the inauguration of the new St. Boniface Church and the Wynfrid Centre. In the more distant past, German Catholics like the few English Catholics who survived the Reformation centuries, not having churches of their own, attended Mass at the Bavarian or Spanish Legation chapels. Around 1800, Johannes Becker, a Swiss priest, and Father Muth, an Austrian, began to take care of German immigrants in London and established a "German Chapel" near today's Mansion House underground station. By 1875 the German Catholics had their own church and lively parish in Whitechapel, with a German Catholic primary school attached. This church was damaged in a Zeppelin-raid in 1917 and destroyed by bombs in 1940.

After World War Two there was a Catholic influx of "new" Germans, some prisoners of war who remained here, women and girls, refugees from the East who sought a new home in Britain. There were many German-English marriages. Then a new German influx of Catholic students, domestic servants and hospital workers, au pairs, started for whom Wynfrid House (as was St. Boniface's name), attached to the church, became a home-like centre.

London still attracts thousands of German au pairs, eager to learn the language. Sometimes there are problems: some employers are "the wrong sort", some girls are exploited, others are disappointed because they have come with the wrong expectations. Family situations are getting more complicated with one-parent families and difficult children. The au-pair, 18 to 20 years old, sometimes comes from a sheltered home or is spoilt herself or totally unaccustomed to her new environment. Adjustments must be made on both sides. Not infrequently the positive aspects of the English character help to make up for the disadvantages of the job. Trained social workers at the German Catholic Social Centre, St.Lioba, in Exeter Road, NW2, have been available for more than 40 years. The original St. Lioba was born of a noble Wessex family; she was a relative of St. Boniface and accompanied the apostle of Germany in his evangelising work. Care work for Evangelical women is carried out on behalf of the German Church Synod by social workers of the Verein für Internationale Jugendarbeit which incorporates the World YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association).

Today the synod is called "Synod of German-speaking Lutheran, Reformed and United congregations in Great Britain". Notwithstanding the varying profile of local congregations the synod and all its members are committed to the theological and cultural heritage of the German Reformation. The synod is an independent church but it has a special relationship with the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). The Pastors employed by the synode are sent to Britain by the EKD; they work here for a fixed term.

The synod is not a national church, and in its congregations Christians not only from Germany but also from other German-speaking countries and from Britain are welcome. Therefore the synod and its members are not called "German" but "German-speaking". They want to be places of ecumenical partnership and of reconciliation between the nations of Britain and Germany.  The synod is a member of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI).

Council for German Church Work
C/o German YMCA
35 Craven Terrace
LondonW2 3EL
Tel: 020 - 7706 85 89
www.german-church.org.uk

Enlarge image St. George's Church